


A Light For the Lost

by sentient_shadow



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Gen, I Don't Even Know, None of this is supported by canon, Oh well I had Fun, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change, The Author Regrets Everything, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 19:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentient_shadow/pseuds/sentient_shadow
Summary: The Beast muses on several things.





	A Light For the Lost

It was all going splendidly.

The Woodsman continued to believe that his daughter's soul was inside the lantern, and somehow the old fool never seemed to notice the antlers on the spinning figure within, a fact for which the Beast was very grateful.

The Woodsman wasn’t the first doomed to wander the woods, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last. The Unknown needed a lanternbearer just as much as it needed a Beast, and lost souls to feed the lantern of course. 

Still the Woodsman couldn’t keep going forever, chopping the Edelwoods was a hard and thankless task.

Already the Beast was beginning to notice how it took the Woodsman longer and longer to reach the next Edelwood and how he seemed more and more suspicious about their mysterious origins. 

The Beast pondered upon this as he glided noiselessly between the autumn trees, attune to even the slightest rustle. After all this was his forest, his beautiful wooded wonderland, waiting to entrap lost souls within it’s dark and tangled depths. 

He was interrupted from his musings by a great crash echoing throughout the wooded glades of the Unknown.

Intrigued, the Beast set out toward the disturbance. 

He soon came upon the old grist mill, one of the few human settlements that still clung on in the eternal battle to keep from being consumed by the underbrush, it looked like something had crashed through the ceiling and there was considerable damage to the structure.

As he took in the scene before him, his luminous eyes were drawn to the lantern, his flaming soul, as it swung from the Woodsman’s hand, it’s light falling upon the faces of the children standing before him. 

The Beast studied the two boys as he slid behind another tree careful to keep to the shadows .

They were an odd looking pair, but then many who found themselves in the unknown were, certainly an old teapot and a pointy red cone were not the strangest headwear he’d seen.

The Woodsman began to shout incoherently, ranting about the wicked Beast and the perils of being lost.

The taller child seemed unnerved but the smaller continued to smile with the same cheerfulness he had shown since the beginning. 

The Beast wondered what it would take to crack that positive outlook, if it were even possible at all. 

The Woodsman finished his rant, the meddlesome old man, and the two figures one forlorn the other happy, set off across the stream. 

The Beast watched them go, eyes narrowed in contemplation, two children lost in the woods, siblings by the looks of it, the Woodsman would not live forever, and opportunities for replacements didn’t come as often as the Beast would like. 

The taller child, he looked like he would be easy to mold, and just the right age to start being of use. . . yes the Beast thought, if the younger child could be manipulated into giving up. . . he would have a new lanternbearer before long and the endless cycle would continue, deep in the Unknown.


End file.
